Tuesday, 19 February 2013

I didn't know what to call this, it isn't a Kiev as it has no butter and it isn't Chicken Cordon Bleu as it doesn't have any ham. Breaded Chicken Breast Stuffed With Gouda may have been an option but that isn't very Free From G ish, with a sensible name like that you would probably expect some form of presentation effort. Problem is, that was dinner and we were hungry, I would have loved to have a fantastic final photo but truth is, I wanted to eat it more.

My personal favourite is the Tarragon Butter Kiev but The Glutenite fancied something a bit different so Breaded Cheesy Chicken was created with him in mind. Were I to make this to my preferences I'd have used Camembert or another cheese equally as strong. I'm a huge fan of cheese in case you didn't know.

I sometimes use leftover Croutons to make breadcrumbs when I have them, this time I used a mix of one ciabatta worth of Croutons and one ciabatta. It gives different textures which I love.

Directions:

Preheat the oven to 200C

Put the ciabattas into a mixer

Crispy Crouton And Doughy Ciabatta

Whizz until they are broken down into breadcrumbs

Homemade Are By Far The Best

Put one of the chicken breasts into a food bag and lay on a chopping board

Protecting The Chicken And Mess Free

Hit with the flat side of a meat hammer until 1cm thick all over

Remove from the bag

Your Base

Put the other breast in the bag and repeat

Peel and mince the garlic straight onto the middle of your base, spread along the centre

Slice the gouda and lay down the middle of the chicken breast, add the chives on top

Now The Tricky Bit

Lay the second breast on top and secure with cocktail sticks (see here for a photo guide), this ensures no leakage

Fully Sealed

Get three bowls, smallish, medium, large

Put the corn starch into the smallest

Break the eggs into the medium one add a pinch of salt and beat

Put half of the breadcrumbs into the largest

Put the cheesy chicken into the flour and fully cover

So The Egg Will Stick

Take the cheesy chicken from the flour, give it a light shake then put into the beaten eggs, make sure all the chicken is coated

Place on top of the breadcrumbs and give the bowl a shake to coat

Turn the cheesy chicken over and coat the other side patting the breadcrumbs in as you go

If you have any breadcrumbs left over, dip the cheesy chicken back into the egg, coat then put back into the breadcrumbs for another coating

Delicious Breadcrumbs

Put into an oven dish

HELLO!

Cook for 40 minutes (when using croutons the breadcrumbs can go a bit dark due to the croutons being toasted, if you're using them too keep checking the Breaded Cheesy Chicken and cover with foil if the breadcrumbs are starting to go too dark)

Because this is a giant meant for two people we cut it before serving, this is when you can take the cocktail sticks out. You'll notice them below.

The reason that I use cocktail sticks is because I like to use whole chicken breasts. You can put the breasts into a mixer and break them down so you can mold them around the filling, but I'm not a fan of that texture, we've tried it and didn't like it. It was reminiscent of the reconstructed chicken* you get in supermarket Kiev's, not good, even when using great quality chicken. In order to keep the breasts together there needs to be some structure, cocktail sticks work a treat.

*Supposedly unsavoury bits of chicken mixed up, but these days who knows where the bits come from, could be chicken, could be parrot. You can tell it's not horse, wrong colour, I've seen that stuff in French supermarkets.

If you're reading this from some far-flung country wondering what on earth I'm writing about, well, red meat eaters in the UK who don't make everything from scratch (read vast majority) have been fed Horse thinking it was Cow in burgers and ready meals. As someone who needs to know every single ingredient that I ingest it's pretty yuck to think that lots of people didn't know what they were eating. I dread to think what else may be found in processed food, it could be a lot worse than something that is common place on the dinner table in other parts of the world. I guess there's an upside to being gluten free and cooking from scratch, I get to avoid the likes of Spaghetti Bologneighs.